24 (season 1)

Season overview

The first season takes place on the day of the California Presidential Primary.

The season's main plot revolves around an assassination attempt on U.S. Senator from Maryland, David Palmer, a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, on the day of the primary in California. The central character is Jack Bauer, a former Delta Force operator who is the Director of the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) in Los Angeles. Bauer becomes professionally as well as personally involved when his wife Teri and daughter Kim are kidnapped by the people behind the assassination plot.

The season is essentially divided into two halves:

1. The first half revolves around a mercenary group's efforts to control Jack Bauer by kidnapping his wife and daughter and forcing him to kill Senator Palmer. This culminates in Jack's successful rescue of his family.
2. In the second half, a second wave of assassins is discovered. As CTU tracks their activities, Jack learns why he and the Senator are being targeted, and motions to counter against the assassins.

Fox initially ordered only 13 episodes — the successful rescue at the end of the season's first half was planned as a series finale in the event that the show was not renewed.

Major subplots

The show rotates between the points of view of each of the five main cast members: Jack Bauer, Teri Bauer, Nina Myers, Kim Bauer, and David Palmer, as well as one main villain — Mandy for the first three hours, followed by Ira Gaines, Andre Drazen, and finally Victor Drazen. The day's situations — both ongoing events and the relationships between these five characters and their associates — form the basis for the season's subplots.

Summary

Season 1 starts and ends at 12:00 a.m. PST. The season's first half centers on the efforts of a terrorist cell led by Ira Gaines to assassinate presidential candidate David Palmer. They kidnap Jack Bauer's wife and daughter in order to force him to aid in the assassination and take the fall for Palmer's death. Jack eventually defeats this cell and Gaines in the process of saving his wife and daughter, but this only leads to information about a second group of terrorists who had employed the first cell. The second cell is led by those ultimately responsible for the day's events: Andre and Alexis Drazen.

Two years ago, to the day, Jack Bauer was sent as part of a classified team to Kosovo on the orders of a secret U.S. Congressional panel headed by David Palmer to kill Victor Drazen, Slobodan Milošević's "shadow." In order to keep Operation Nightfall totally secret, the panel never met nor knew the team of operatives, nor did the team know the panel. Therefore, Palmer and Bauer never knew about each other. The Drazens found out about both Palmer's and Bauer's involvement in the attack against their father and the death of his daughter and his wife. Incidentally, Jack Bauer was believed to be the only operative still alive, and the whole assassination plot was to practice revenge: Palmer would be dead, Jack would be imprisoned for the assassination, and his family would be killed.

During the last few episodes, the plot twists revealed many surprises. It was revealed that Bauer's team had only killed Drazen's body double. Drazen's wife and daughter, however, were inadvertently killed, prompting the "eye for an eye" aspect of the plot: as Drazen's wife and daughter died, so would Bauer's wife and daughter. Viewers also discovered that the real Victor Drazen is a top secret, unofficial prisoner of the U.S. government, and the Drazens' primary goal was to free Victor Drazen.

Eventually, to satisfy the Drazens, Palmer's death is faked. The Drazens recapture Bauer's daughter Kim and offer to exchange her life for Bauer's. However, Kim escapes and the Drazens soon learn that Palmer is still alive. With time running out on his chance to escape before he is recaptured, in desperation, the freed Victor Drazen tells his mole inside CTU, who is revealed to be Nina Myers, to call Bauer and tell him that his daughter is dead and that the U.S. Coast Guard has found her body. Drazen knows that a grieving Jack will attack him, and he believes he, his son Andre Drazen (the other, Alexis, having been seriously injured earlier by an aide to Sen. Palmer and later dying of his wounds during transportation to the Drazen hideout) and their henchmen can kill Jack. Nina is reluctant, knowing that if Drazen's plan fails, Jack will very quickly learn that Kim is not dead and that, since Nina lied to him, she must be the mole. However Nina does tell this lie to Jack.

Drazen's plot backfires rather spectacularly, as an enraged Jack kills Drazen's son and guards, and in the process corners Victor Drazen before killing him, after both have exchanged fire in a shootout. Afterwards, Jack Bauer speaks with a member of the Coast Guard to arrange to claim his daughter's body. The Coast Guard informs Bauer that they did not find a body that night. Bauer realizes that Nina Myers is the mole. He calls George Mason and tells him to detain Myers, but Myers, who heard that Bauer had survived, was already preparing for exfiltration by erasing all the incriminating information of herself on CTU's computer. Bauer's wife, Teri, is confused about the events surrounding Jack's attempt to rescue their daughter, and looks for Myers, whom she trusts. Teri realizes that Myers is the mole, however, and Myers ties her to a chair. Jack comes to CTU and lets the agents take Myers into custody (as opposed to killing her). He then discovers his wife's body in the chair with a fatal gunshot wound to her abdomen. The season ends with Jack cradling his dead wife in his arms, while he constantly tells her he is sorry.

The season has a dramatic and unexpected ending: the death of Teri Bauer. Many fans were dismayed by this sudden plot twist, while others applauded 24's genre-defying willingness to unexpectedly kill major characters. The producers also filmed an alternate ending in which Teri, Kim and Jack are reunited. However, they eventually decided to go with the death of Teri Bauer as the climax of season one. The alternate ending is available on the DVD boxed set for the season.

Plot twists affecting future seasons

Starring

Special guest stars

Production

The first season introduced split screens into 24, a feature which continued to play a role in all of the seasons, especially the early ones. Editors originally wanted the boxes showing separate characters to overlap but Stephen Hopkins decided not to do this. The writers were intentionally secretive about whether Teri Bauer would be killed in the final episode. To cast doubt about the outcome, three endings were filmed, two of which showed that Teri survived.

Trailer

The trailer for the first season aired some time between April and November, 2001. The trailer announces that David Palmer may become the first black U.S. President and shows Jack Bauer learning about the assassination attempt and corruption within his agency. Notably, the trailer shows the explosion of a commercial plane that was edited out of the show in response to the September 11 attacks. All other scenes shown are from the premiere episode.

Reception

The first season received universal acclaim, scoring a Metacritic rating of 88/100 based on 27 reviews. Kiefer Sutherland won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama for his role as Jack Bauer for this season. In 2009, the season finale ("11:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.") was listed in TV Guide's list of the top 100 episodes of all time, at number 10. In 2005, TV Land included the same episode as part of its "100 Most Unexpected Moments in TV History", ranking it number 32.

Home media releases

The first season was released on DVD in region 1 on September 17, 2002 (2002-09-17), and in region 2 on October 14, 2002 (2002-10-14). A special edition version was released in region 1 on May 20, 2008 (2008-05-20).